#WeAreRydeArts - Bella Jackson Moss
“For someone in the early stages of my creative career, this project was a hugely valuable collaborative learning experience. After a year of uncertainty and anxiety and job loss, the project offered a chance to process it all creatively, and create something good from it. ”
I’m Bella Jackson Moss and I’m a Nottingham based artist. I like to combine animation, video art and sculpture using projection, and have created a wide range of work for events and exhibitions.
What was the RA project you were involved in? My friend and illustrator, Joe Manners and I collaborated on Covid Commissions. We responded to the brief by inviting a range of participants to share their personal experiences of the pandemic, and experimented with telling their stories by combining our practices of still and moving image.
How did you grow as an artist as a result of the Covid Commissions? If anything, this project has taught me to adapt to new ways of working and communicating. Computer animating Joe’s illustrations meant I had to learn some new technical skills, and I also got the opportunity to hone some existing ones, like hand-drawn animation and video editing. Collaborating with Joe was exciting - we are very good friends but from very different creative worlds, so working to suit each other’s styles was a valuable experience. Joe’s ability to hone in on specific ideas and concepts really complimented my tendency to work on multiple ideas and directions at once. It was very useful having him there to ground me when needed and I certainly grew as a result.
How was the community involved in your project? We interviewed people from all walks of life, and tried to make the process as fun as possible for the participants. We discussed and received feedback about the questions and interview methods we were using, and adapted them as we progressed. Restrictions meant that we were limited to emails, video calls and outdoor, socially distanced meetings, but this allowed us to get a wide range of responses and over huge distances. I was moved by the participants enthusiasm, and laughed and cried at their humorous and profound accounts of the COVID-19 era.
In what ways do you think Ryde Arts community participation projects are good for the cultural wellbeing of the community? For someone in the early stages of my creative career, this project was a hugely valuable collaborative learning experience. After a year of uncertainty and anxiety and job loss, the project offered a chance to process it all creatively, and create something good from it. We both wanted to engage as many members of the community in our project as possible, and considering many different perspectives meant the project encompassed a mix of narratives. I think that partly the catharsis of sharing stories about the pandemic meant that people were keen to get involved and the positive effects rippled out into the community.
What lasting memory do you have of this project? It was emotional at times, and I will not forget any of it in a hurry! The research phase for me was a period of absorbing people’s thoughts, feelings and experiences and really considering how it has affected us. Seeing Joe’s work in motion for the first time was particularly memorable. Then in development, seeing narratives develop and materialise into scenes that evoked such strong emotions of fear, calm, and even ones that made me laugh out loud. This and hearing the ‘ping’ that marked the completion of the final render! We hadn’t set out any specific plans other than to make moving image work, so I was hugely proud to have finished a short film.
Contact: Instagram @bellzubub
